Sheboygan schools could take a closer look at a district-wide weapons policy that leaves room for certain types of "lockback" pocket knives with blades shorter than 3 inches, the district's superintendent has said.(Photo: Pexels)

SHEBOYGAN – Sheboygan schools could take a closer look at a district-wide weapons policy that leaves room for certain types of knives at school, Superintendent Joe Sheehan said this week.

Current Sheboygan Area School District policy generally restricts staff, students or visitors from “possessing, storing, making, or using a weapon” in most district settings, though it makes an exception for “lockback” pocket knives with blades shorter than 3 inches.

“We need to review that again,” Sheehan said after a reporter asked about the policy’s exception for knives. “Because, again, the student safety things are changing, and as they’re changing, they’re tightening up.”

The interview with the reporter followed a separate district inquiry into its weapons policy following reports in schools of students threatening to use pepper spray. Sheehan said those reports had prompted discipline, but had also raised administrators’ eyebrows as they wondered whether schools' existing rule banning weapons was written broadly enough to prohibit pepper spray.

"That’s a real serious question,” Sheehan said last week as he and other school leaders consulted with attorneys and other experts on the issue.

“Do we totally ban it from school?" Sheehan asked, before referencing cases in which parents might want their child to carry pepper spray with them to class — scenarios that could add a unique layer of complexity to the problem.

By the start of this week, he said, the district had gotten word from attorneys that the policy did, in fact, include a ban on pepper spray — a ban Sheehan said schools intended to keep in place.

But when a reporter, who had also reviewed the weapons policy, asked why schools had made an exception for certain types of knives, Sheehan said the question could be a new one for school leaders to consider.

The existing rule defines a weapon as “any object” that can cause “serious bodily harm or property damage” or that can threaten people’s “health and safety.” The policy gives a few examples of weapons, including guns, knives — save for the lockback exception — razors, clubs, “electric weapons,” metallic knuckles, martial arts weapons, ammunition and explosives.

Not specifically mentioned is pepper spray, though Sheehan pointed to legal experts' recent opinion that the policy effectively prohibits it.

The policy also makes room for some exceptions besides short lockback knives. The rule also allows police to carry weapons in schools, and prohibitions on weapons don't apply to cased and unloaded firearms or ammunition stored inside locked vehicles on school grounds.

Online records show the district adopted its current policy in 2013. Sheehan said he wasn’t aware of schools reporting problems involving lockback knives.